Michelle Marder Kamhi's "Who Says That's Art?"

[anthony]

A couple unrelated points (alas written a bit too quickly):

Kant arrived at his presentation of the Sublime via induction, at least to some extent. He experienced numerous instances of it through contemplation of nature and art, introspected, omitted the measurements etcetera and so on. And he talked to others about their experiences; please don't dismiss this as "subjective". The alternative would be that he read Burke and just made up his own variation on it arbitrarily, which is a hopeless thesis. Even more hopeless: he deliberately devised a version of it that would, centuries later, spawn Modern Art, with the goal of destroying the mind, culture, and the civilized world, all of which Kant hated, forsaw, and was brilliant enough to know how to undermine.

Ninth, Thoughtful points. It still seems to me the special significance of Kant's contemplated, introspected findings has to be questioned. My point being that it is obvious that a man can and will feel overwhelmed by nature, whether of the static - or the potentially harmful to him, dynamic kind. The first can be simply explained as a sensory overload - one's relative, puny scale to things of unbelievable size, I think - isn't the other the justified primitive fear of powerful forces, combined with their scale? Nature can terrify, for good cause and for no cause.

To transcend that fearful moment the first impulse for humans is to identify it: what is that?

One could relate it to waking up from a nightmare in a cold sweat, perceiving the familar reality of one's bedroom and slowly regaining one's cognition. What was that? Where am I? The nightmare wasn't 'real' (thankfully) and this IS (thankfully). For a second, one might feel pleasure and fading fear at the same time. The fear that delights?

I can't claim "a volitional consciousness" and transcending/apprehending natural objects/forces are the same, but they may be comparable when portrayed in art.

Instances in AR's fiction, purportedly of 'the sublime', could be mistaken for her view of men rising to obstacles and overcoming.

I don't know if anyone believes that the "evil" of Kant was in his setting out to deliberately destroy, well - anything. "Hopeless", if it were so. It seems plain that he was honest in his instruction and explanation. How much in error, is something else. Definitely, it was for his epistemology that Rand slated him most.

[Thorn]

In particular for the visual arts, it's a good idea to closely study the how and why of Rand's theory, but mostly get over her 'what' - her own preferences and dislikes. What possesses objective value for one individual to the next, varies widely in art, I think

So, we know how she cricized Vermeer and praised Capuletti. Why did she do that?

I also find it a bit of a problem with an aesthetic theory that talks about judging art, when it's originator makes poor judgements of art.

[Brant Gaede]

What "esthetic theory"? I didn't know she had one. She had a bunch of disparate opinions. So do I, but I'd not label them a theory. A theory or theories can be distilled, of course, but I don't think she ever did or make the attempt. She wrote most and best about fiction writing and "romantic realism" and threw in "sense of life," mostly for music, but since psychology is so much for her about music, she could make it travel wherever she wanted to, mostly to exclude almost everybody except her husband out. In this she was closer to an esthetic delusion than any theory. ("Art is a selective recreation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgments." [i think this quote off the top of my head is correct.] This is the only unifying statement from her I know of, but qua theory it can't travel except for passing judgments.) These are not actual quotes or if any are--not the last one--I can't reference them: "Not my sense of life," "Not my kind of man," "not me, me, me, me." It was all about her, her, her and her.

--Brant

that's okay; that's art coming and going and makes everything quite dynamic even if there's no apparent movement

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

From the first quoted paragraph it seems clear the context of her charge against Kant is that his target is "man's integrating capacity"...

Dennis,

Without going too much into Kant, I see a problem here with Rand's integration idea that has always bothered me.

In claiming that "integrating capacity" is "the psycho-epistemological key to reason" (to quote her from the quote you posted), she comes off to me in many places promoting the assumption that if a mental or cultural or aesthetic activity is not for integration, it is an attack on it.

But there are plenty of healthy, correct and good mental processes that occur that are not integrative, starting with an easy example, daydreaming.

One is only an attack on the other when it is used for such. Otherwise, I see no problem with the mind having an integrative function and non-integrative functions.

And that, to use Objectivist reasoning, is an example of the law of identity. In other words, it is wrong to call the non-integrative part of the mind "evil" since this is part of the mind's identity. I haven't seen the following idea explicitly developed in Objectivist literature, but a thing's identity--or part of it--cannot be evil. Why? Because identity is a metaphysical concept, in other words, reality. And reality is not evil.

I don't know enough about Kant yet to know if his categorical imperatives and other conjectures are attempts to destroy integration as fundamental to reason or merely speculative attempts to identify what the mind is (which I currently believe in my uninformed state), but I see a possibility here for Rand's charge that Kant was the most evil man in history. Since she believed that the only good in the human mind came from integration and she believed that Kant's system, while sounding like reason, was arbitrary (or worse, an intentional attempt to hide reality) and would prohibit integration, maybe this explains it.

But, let's look without the venom. Suppose we accept the premise that Kant's identifications were rationalizations from introspection and simply wrong. Could they not still serve as virtual or metaphorical elements for other mental uses?

Here's an analogy to clarify what I mean. Ancient people used to literally believe seasons, the activity of the sun, and almost every other part of reality were due to the adventures of gods. They told stories about gods and that was how they identified the laws of reality. Later, these myths were debunked as indications of external reality, but they still served as great metaphors for human activity. Hell, Atlas Shrugged is full of them.

So, to use one simple example, is Rand's metaphorical references to Prometheus an attack on the integrative faculty, the reason, of the first man or woman who discovered fire as a tool?

Of course not. It is a perfect example of how integration and non-integration are perfectly suited to the human mind--Rand herself used it. So this issue is not either-or.

It is both.

The mind needs integration for reason, true, but it also need non-integration for other functions (which are outside of the scope of this post, but neuroscience and modern psychology are uncovering and/or proving one after another). The attempt to identify and/or understand the non-integrative functions is not an attack on the mind. It is an attempt to correctly identify it.

(I grant that some people use this information as an attack on the mind to satisfy their power-lust, death-premise, envy, or whatever, but I see the urge to correctly understand as the predominant motivation underlying the stuff I have been investigating recently. And I suspect that this was Kant's primary motivation, too.)

I would go so far as to claim that reason cannot exist without the non-integrative part of the mind. In other words, reason emerged from it and is in addition to it. And that both are necessary to a healthy mind. This is different than Rand's assumption that reason somehow is there in the mind, is operated solely by volition (which is also somehow there), and needs to destroy non-integrative mental activity or be destroyed by it.

To be a smart-ass, I see demonizing the non-integrative part of the mind as a Randian admission of original sin. In other words, humans are born morally defective (in sin through non-integration) and we must choose to redeem ourselves (through embracing reason and by destroying the non-integrative part).

Michael

[anthony]

In particular for the visual arts, it's a good idea to closely study the how and why of Rand's theory, but mostly get over her 'what' - her own preferences and dislikes. What possesses objective value for one individual to the next, varies widely in art, I think

So, we know how she cricized Vermeer and praised Capuletti. Why did she do that?

I also find it a bit of a problem with an aesthetic theory that talks about judging art, when it's originator makes poor judgements of art.

For that, a thorough reading of her Manifesto, for the nature of art and its value to the individual.

What is your rationale for Rand's poor judgements? I'm interested to know. The artist's technical mastery, or lack? Or something else?

"Judgement" has long accumulated a mystical connotation, requiring an ultimate or 'perfect' Judge to pass.

Objectivism upholds a rational individual's 'value-judgment', for his/her life, alone.

Because it is always in the context of his life and expanding knowledge, he doesn't claim perfect judgment of art per se or of an artwork, like he does not claim perfect, complete knowledge.

Art has so entered 'the collective consciousness', that many people very apparently resent any individual judgment and self-authority, without high academic qualifications and peer review.

So, who is art for and why? Of value, to whom?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

So, who is art for and why? Of value, to whom?

Tony,

If you want to spend the time truly questioning this (rather than using these questions as hooks to repeat Rand's answers ), I highly recommend you spend a couple of hours on the two videos in this post.

At the very least, they will make you shore up your Randian arguments with more nuance because they are very, very persuasive that some things she did not contemplate are going on with man's need for art.

Michael

[anthony]

I'll look em up, Michael. Thanks. Basics first, nuance after has been my approach to all things. "Value" takes many levels and forms.

[Brant Gaede]

I'll look em up, Michael. Thanks. Basics first, nuance after has been my approach to all things. "Value" takes many levels and forms.

Is it "nuance" or simply real data?

--Brant

if you start with the "basics," how did you get there to begin with?

[anthony]

I'll look em up, Michael. Thanks. Basics first, nuance after has been my approach to all things. "Value" takes many levels and forms.

Is it "nuance" or simply real data?

--Brant

if you start with the "basics," how did you get there to begin with?

Putting the basics together there will be those ittie-bittie nuances that are too minor to be categorized. Not gone or forgotten though, they can still be graded.

And how do you see nuance?

[Brant Gaede]

Are you unfamiliar with the fact that the field of aesthetics is not limited to art? Do you not know that Kant primarily addressed aesthetic judgments as they pertain to nature?

J

Not unfamiliar, contemptuous of it. The question that matters pertains to art, especially cinema.

This is also how you implicitly address (political) philosophy: "Not unfamiliar, contemptuous of it." All that matters is some constitutional construct (cinema). Your view of these subjects is much like Rand addressing anything: autonomous unto herself pretending there's something to travel. (In some cases there is so she was seductive with her ideas in a way you are not.)

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

I'll look em up, Michael. Thanks. Basics first, nuance after has been my approach to all things. "Value" takes many levels and forms.

Is it "nuance" or simply real data?

--Brant

if you start with the "basics," how did you get there to begin with?

Putting the basics together there will be those ittie-bittie nuances that are too minor to be categorized. Not gone or forgotten though, they can still be graded.

And how do you see nuance?

Derivative data.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

"Not my sense of life" is what I imagine Rand would say about competently done visual art she didn't like. I say "competently done" to cover art she liked incompetently done or simply inferior on the face of it like that one done by her husband she had put on the cover of the 25th An. Ed. of The Fountainhead. This bypasses actual esthetics. By and large I don't think Frank O'Connor produced Objectivist kitsch, not even with this one, to my knowledge his worst.

--Brant

it's hard to admire something when you have the skill sans composition to do the same thing and that's hardly any skill at all (not true for me of his other work)

Yeah, when it came to visual art, Rand never used her own stated method of "esthetic judgment." She never set aside her emotions, subjective tastes and preferences, and she never objectively identified the thematic content and "the artist's meaning" based only on the content of the work. Instead, she imported or imposed her own very subjective and quite irrational content -- things that weren't there in the art. As I mentioned in an earlier post, her pissing on Vermeer is a great example of her nonsense. Vermeer's work was not Naturalism by her definition. It did not show average people in defeat and despair who were volition-lacking playthings of fate. Quite the opposite.

I think that most people recognize that judgments in art necessarily contain a high degree of subjectivity, and that there's a lot of room for differing interpretations based on how each individual will subjectively place varying levels of importance on the elements contained in any work of art, and what they might add up to meaning-wise.

In practice, Rand went way beyond that normal level of generally accepted subjectivity. In effect, she just made shit up or was so inexperienced and unknowledgeable of the visual arts that she was incapable of recognizing that fictional characters were being presented, and not real people from "next door," or that the artist was portraying his take on a traditional parable. She failed to recognize obvious visual metaphors and symbols, and, most shockingly, she was apparently incapable of seeing the happiness, productivity, cleanliness, success and wealth of Vermeer's characters and scenes.

I think that Rand's inability to have ever once practiced her own theory says a hell of a lot about its relationship to reality. I think that it's quite instructive that the mother of "objectivity" in the arts was, in practice, even less objective than those who hold the position that aesthetic judgments are subjective. She very powerfully demonstrated the impractibility and the unreality of her own theories.

J

[Jonathan]

Oh, but Newbsie's contorted freaks are very Objectivist! His art is an example of what happens when Rand's followers attempt to impose her aesthetic rules and tastes onto visual art, and when they adopt the fantasy of being real life visual arts equivalents of Howard Roark. Objectivism in the visual arts is the practice of the artist announcing through his work that he possesses the explosively joyous, passionate, and proper "sense-of-life" that he is required to have as an Objectivist, via overtly visually signaling his internal state in his characters' external states -- through excessively artificially posed body language, and artlessly staged, unrealistic environments. That's Objectivist visual art 101.J

In what sense do you use the word Objectivist? I'm not so sure Ayn Rand would have approved of some of the Objectivist art. I mean, if she thought Maxfield Parrish was trash, then what about Objecti-kitsch?

In the above, I use the word "Objectivist" in the sense of Rand's publicly presented aesthetic rules and tastes in art, even though I don't think of those rules and tastes as qualifying as "objective" or "Objectivist" (my view is that much of her aesthetic theory does not comply with the Objectivist epistemology). As for which works of art Rand would have approved of, that's anyone's guess, especially in the realm of the visual arts. She was inconsistent, and she had novice tastes. She seemed to enjoy hating a lot of art, and looking for something to condemn in it (her peculiar interpretations of Vermeer's work being a great example of novice visual abilities combined with a hostile attitude). The smart money would bet that any painting that you were to show her would likely be met with bile. She did give some indications now and then about her subjective preferences in visual art. And her followers include those tastes in their art. Bright colors, uncontrolled/non-limited palette, wide value gamut contrast, sharp outlines, differentiated colors-contours, hard lighting, hard shadows, overtly expressive characters, etc. I agree that if she had seen what her followers interpret her as having wished for, she probably wouldn't have liked it. She wasn't a visual artist, and I don't think that she could really visualize how crappy visual art would be if anyone actually indulged her attempt to impose her theory of literature onto the visual arts. J

True, they do follow her aesthetics. At least when taken at face value. However, regurgitating the same themes and doing the n'th number of contrived poses expressing joy and rapture doesn't go well with the rest of her ideas. I don't think that's what she envisioned. I can only speculate, of course.Yeah, it's hard to guess what she would have approved of. Calling her interpretations of Vermeer 'peculiar' is too kind. They're flat out wrong. Only thing she got right was calling his handling of light masterful, though it's hardly what his painting were about. Capuletti has also been mentioned before, and though I like some of his work he was hardly a "virtuoso". Her judgement on visual art certainly was strange.

Her judgments of visual art were just uninformed/ignorant. She was a visual arts novice with zero technical knowledge who was posing as a philosopher guru to her circle of followers who knew even less than she. Maybe she fell into the trap of believing that she had all of the answers, without actually having to know anything, because she was surrounded by adoring acolytes who believed with all their hearts that she was omniscient?

J

[Jonathan]

J

True, they do follow her aesthetics. At least when taken at face value. However, regurgitating the same themes and doing the n'th number of contrived poses expressing joy and rapture doesn't go well with the rest of her ideas. I don't think that's what she envisioned. I can only speculate, of course.

Yeah, it's hard to guess what she would have approved of. Calling her interpretations of Vermeer 'peculiar' is too kind. They're flat out wrong. Only thing she got right was calling his handling of light masterful, though it's hardly what his painting were about. Capuletti has also been mentioned before, and though I like some of his work he was hardly a "virtuoso". Her judgement on visual art certainly was strange.

In particular for the visual arts, it's a good idea to closely study the how and why of Rand's theory, but mostly get over her 'what' - her own preferences and dislikes. What possesses objective value for one individual to the next, varies widely in art, I think

One's "own preferences and dislikes" is what the word "subjective" means.

Someone's objectively valuing what one interprets a work of art to mean is not the issue. The issue is interpreting, not valuing. The issue is that Rand's interpretations were subjective, and often times irrational. She did not set aside her subjective preferences or follow her own stated theory of taking the artist's theme as the criterion. Instead, she imposed her subjective preferences as her means of attempting to identify the artist's theme. She misidentified artists' themes, and to the point of absurdity.

But, anyway, thanks for contributing another word to the Newbsie Dictionary of Philosophy. "Subjective" has now been "updated" to mean "objective."

J

[Jonathan]

Google's version of the sublime. https://frightgeist.withgoogle.com/costume/Harley-Quinn

How did you come up with the idea that that's "Google's version of the sublime"?

J

[Jonathan]

I can't claim "a volitional consciousness" and transcending/apprehending natural objects/forces are the same, but they may be comparable when portrayed in art.

It's fun watching you construct your straw men. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Day after day after day. Lately I've been trying to guess ahead of time what your next scarecrow will look like. I haven't succeeded yet. I guess that you're just too irrational for me to get in the right mindset of which type of crazy you'll employ next.

We've been discussing aesthetic effects. In bringing up the portrayal of "volitional consciousness" and its importance to Rand as something that she wanted to advocate in her art, you are confusing the aesthetic means with the message, or what Rand called the "deeper philosophical level." The MESSAGE of Rand's art includes "man as possessing a volitional consciousness." That's the what. The STYLE of her art is the Sublime. That's the how.

Instances in AR's fiction, purportedly of 'the sublime', could be mistaken for her view of men rising to obstacles and overcoming.

Heh. And instances of her purportedly writing 'fiction' could be mistaken for her writing stories about characters and event that didn't happen in reality. Similarly, instances of her purportedly 'eating food' could be mistaken for her consuming nutritional substances. The instances where she was purported to have ridden in a car could have been mistaken for her having traveled in an automobile. Etc.

J

[Jonathan]

Objectivism upholds a rational individual's 'value-judgment', for his/her life, alone.

Because it is always in the context of his life and expanding knowledge, he doesn't claim perfect judgment of art per se or of an artwork, like he does not claim perfect, complete knowledge.

Art has so entered 'the collective consciousness', that many people very apparently resent any individual judgment and self-authority, without high academic qualifications and peer review.

So, who is art for and why? Of value, to whom?

It's not an issue of people "resenting" anything, but more of their laughing at aesthetically incompetent twats posing as experts who demand that their own judgments of art are the only proper and "objective" ones, and that their personal aesthetic limitations are the universal limitations of all mankind, and that anyone who says that they experience anything beyond that very limited level is lying or delusional. Seriously, you don't rise to the importance of being resented or envied or anything like that. I don't think it's possible for most people to "resent" dunces who constantly show how aesthetically unobservant, unaware, and just outright dumb and incompetent they are. Laughter. Ridicule. Not resentment.

J

[Jonathan]

Hypothetical:

Let's say that we introduce Rand to a concept without informing her of its history or who in the past had commented on it.

We tell her that it is an experience that many people have had, and that it presents a bit of a problem or puzzle that many haven't been able to figure out to their satisfaction. We explain that the experience happens when people stand on a high ledge in the Alps and look down and around at all that surrounds them, or on shore in a position of safety while millions of gallons of water are released from a damn right next to them, or when they witness a distant cyclone out at sea turning the entire sky above it and lifting and throwing the ocean in its path. We give her several such examples, including more modern ones like roller coasters and turbo drop towers, and even the seeming infinitude of formless gray masses of envy-laden collectivists sinking a nation's economy.

We tell her that the puzzle is that people recognize a strong sense of fear or terror in these phenomena, but that there's also something about the experience that is very exhilarating. People feel invigorated from these fearful phenomena of seemingly incomphrehensible magnitude and/or power.

We the ask her to ponder and then explain what she thinks is going on in the experience. We ask her how it is that something which can cause a sense of something like fear or terror can also the result in a feeling of exaltation. We ask her to solve the puzzle.

What would her response be?

Would she be the happy, brilliant Rand who loved to focus her mind on finding an original solution to a difficult problem, or would she be the pissy guru-wannabe who would merely arbitrarily dismiss the experience as a psychological defect in others? Would she recognize the effect in her own work? Would she be the Rand that I admire, or would she be the other Rand that people like Tony and Nebsie follow and mimic?

J

[anthony]

I've constantly seen that "objective" to you J, means: empirical, 'universal' or detached. I'm through explaining this time how wrong you are. Every time you broach that deliberate error it's you who are strawman constructing.

I think you're over-invested in Kantian aesthetics, so all your opposition comes with Kantian flavor from what you know of Kant.

Ironic, considering your "Randroid" refrain.

You'd rather an authority told the common people what's good for them, rather than they make up their own minds, find their values and take their own pleasures. So what if they are naively unknowledgable about art technique and history.

("Of value, to whom?"- remember?)

Technical proficiency in art is not sufficient authority; "perspective" (etc.) is no argument of reason and philosophy.

"Art brings man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allows him to grasp them directly, as if they were percepts".

"Art ... concretizes man's fundamental view of himself and of existence".

Argue with these thoughts.

[anthony]

Objectivism upholds a rational individual's 'value-judgment', for his/her life, alone.

Because it is always in the context of his life and expanding knowledge, he doesn't claim perfect judgment of art per se or of an artwork, like he does not claim perfect, complete knowledge.

Art has so entered 'the collective consciousness', that many people very apparently resent any individual judgment and self-authority, without high academic qualifications and peer review.

So, who is art for and why? Of value, to whom?

It's not an issue of people "resenting" anything, but more of their laughing at aesthetically incompetent twats posing as experts who demand that their own judgments of art are the only proper and "objective" ones, and that their personal aesthetic limitations are the universal limitations of all mankind, and that anyone who says that they experience anything beyond that very limited level is lying or delusional. Seriously, you don't rise to the importance of being resented or envied or anything like that. I don't think it's possible for most people to "resent" dunces who constantly show how aesthetically unobservant, unaware, and just outright dumb and incompetent they are. Laughter. Ridicule. Not resentment.

J

Resentment.

[Jonathan]

I think you're over-invested in Kantian aesthetics, so all your opposition comes with Kantian flavor from what you know of Kant.

Ironic, for all your "Randroid" b.s.

I'm not at all invested in Kantian aesthetics. I'm invested in identifying reality. The issue is not Kant, but the Sublime. YOU keep making it about Kant. The issue is that the concept of Sublime has a meaning which refers to expeiences in reality. You want to hate that experience simply because Kant happened to address the subject along with many other thinkers prior to him.

You'd rather an authority told the common people what's good for them, rather than they make up their own minds, find their values and take their own pleasures.

You're lying. I've never said anything like that. I've never taken that position. My actual position is that I reject bossypants Rand followers telling everyone else that their aesthetic experiences cannot possibly have happened because the bossypantses didn't experience them. I reject your position that you're an authority because you're a "common man" and therefore that your personal limitations represent the limitations of human cognition. I reject your position that you're qualified to tell others that their experiences are not legitimate because you're unobservant, unaware and uninformed, then they can't possibly be brighter than you in any way or exceed your severe personal limitations.

Technical proficiency in art is not sufficient authority; "perspective" (etc.) is no argument of reason and philosophy.

Technical knowledge is required if one is claiming to judge technical proficiency of an artist's work. What you and people like you resent is that your lack of technical knowledge is not sufficient to establish your authority. You want to belive that you can "objectively" comment on technical merit (the "sheer perfection of Capuletti's workmanship" is a good example) while knowing absolutely nothing about the subject, and while being wrong. You think that your having read Rand's theories, quoting them, and huffing and puffing about them somehow qualifies you as an authority.

J

[Jonathan]

Objectivism upholds a rational individual's 'value-judgment', for his/her life, alone.

Because it is always in the context of his life and expanding knowledge, he doesn't claim perfect judgment of art per se or of an artwork, like he does not claim perfect, complete knowledge.

Art has so entered 'the collective consciousness', that many people very apparently resent any individual judgment and self-authority, without high academic qualifications and peer review.

So, who is art for and why? Of value, to whom?

It's not an issue of people "resenting" anything, but more of their laughing at aesthetically incompetent twats posing as experts who demand that their own judgments of art are the only proper and "objective" ones, and that their personal aesthetic limitations are the universal limitations of all mankind, and that anyone who says that they experience anything beyond that very limited level is lying or delusional. Seriously, you don't rise to the importance of being resented or envied or anything like that. I don't think it's possible for most people to "resent" dunces who constantly show how aesthetically unobservant, unaware, and just outright dumb and incompetent they are. Laughter. Ridicule. Not resentment.

J

Resentment.

No. Laughter at stupidity.

J

[anthony]

So, who is art for and why? Of value, to whom?

Tony,

If you want to spend the time truly questioning this (rather than using these questions as hooks to repeat Rand's answers ), I highly recommend you spend a couple of hours on the two videos in this post.

At the very least, they will make you shore up your Randian arguments with more nuance because they are very, very persuasive that some things she did not contemplate are going on with man's need for art.

Michael

Michael: I only saw the first (TED) video and it is very good. I'm quite surprised that you'd think, first, that this is no more than nuance, or especially that I would find disagreement. It's significant stuff.

(I remember some time back throwing out my own half-assed theory of the origins of beauty in our minds, and drawing connections to survival and evolution of early man. Not far off!)

Beauty is undoubtedly highly important. I'd aImost go as far as saying that I take it for granted, and assume to find it often in art (and all over). As much as having two legs, ten fingers with opposable thumbs - and so on - the recognition of and creation of beauty, developed as a human necessity to fill some purpose.

"Deep in our minds", not in the eye of the beholder - as Dutton said.

I'm misunderstood, it seems. The notion of "objective" beauty would be rejected in Kant's aesthetics (for one). That's been my argument, contrary to his subjectivity. But then, he was an admitted subjectivist.

But as you know, Objectivism is a theory of value: the objective value, distinct from the intrinsic and the subjective.

Beauty is clearly of objective value to man.

Rand didn't write much on this, but it seems certain from many sources that she admired and presumed on beauty in good or great art.

It is just that she also had bigger fish to fry.

[Wolf DeVoon]

Sublime in suburban San Diego ["Extreme haunted house" Guardian]

For the past decade, the manor has hosted a handful of guests each weekend, challenging them to last the eight-hour “tour”. Marines and cage fighters, cops and bikers, plumbers and clerks, housewives and beauticians – all have tried. None succeeded.

You can watch them on YouTube whimpering and trembling, begging for mercy, for it to stop. This only fuels a clamour to get in: there is apparently a waiting list of 27,000 people.

[Wolf DeVoon]

More sicko sublime, from the Atlantic

 

Pinsker: I want to talk a little bit about the theories behind this. What is the root of the pleasure of being scared on purpose?

 

Kerr: It's coming from the chemicals in our body—the dopamine and endorphins and the oxytocin, all the neurotransmitters and things that are coursing through our body. I think that the pleasure is in hijacking the set response, when we know we're safe, and just enjoying the natural high. But there's also the psychological component. We have fun doing these scary things because it leaves us feeling really confident in ourselves, because we've done something challenging and we survived. So that is going to make us feel like pretty badass, even though we know it's fake. And it's the guaranteed outcome, kind of cheating in a way, because you know that you're going to make it out and be okay and you still get to feel good.

 

 

...especially if you watch someone else's car disappear. How cool is that!